I have mentioned it elsewhere on these forums but there is the story of the user who after the introduction of 3.5" floppies was confused and folded his old 5.25" floppies in half to get them to fit ....

2. A friend of a friend who sent an email to the address [name]attheratehotmaildotcom.

1. A girl in an accountant's office I once apprenticed in - this is during the Win 3.1 era when mice were relatively new - she holds a ball mouse in the air and waves it around... "Why isn't anything happening??!"

We're all clueless sometimes. Whenever I'm tempted to be smug, I think about when I have to take my car in to be fixed. The mechanic could be making up the names of car parts and I'd never know. (I suspect I've had a few mechanics who did this.)

And I've been driving a car for decades! Some of them have probably wondered, as I stood there staring at the engine trying not to look like a total dink, "Geeze, how clueless do you have to be to not know that Ford hasn't made these with a carbeurator since 1985?"

This board is a select group. We like computers. We're interseted in them and curious about how they work. Using them is fun for us, even if it is sometimes frustrating. Not everyone feels this way.

And being in the user experience field, I feel like I need to point out that every "clueless user" story is really a "clueless programmer" story seen from the other side. Some developer(s) was/were too lazy or inexperienced or socially isolated to figure out how to make an interaction work for the person who had to actually use the program they were writing. Hilarity ensues.

that's a common analogy, Jindoria, but i think the clueless pc user is more like the clueless driver - i think (or hope) that they are rare.

in other words, the clueless pc user (in my original example) is like someone that has been driving their car for several years and yet they still ask where the ignition switch is when they get into a new car. then they ask how to operate the steering wheel or the gear stick.

i have to admit i wouldn't have the faintest idea how the engine works in my car, but i do know how to drive it (and i'd know how to drive another car that didn't look like it). so i agree with the analogy on the hardware side of things.

One learns something every day! Steering wheel, you say! I thought that thing was the valve wheel to open the fuel filler.Fortunately, because I've never managed to get that open, I've never had fuel so the issue of steering hasn't yet arisen.

In response to nudone, I worked at a Chevy dealership in the parts department. Just last Spring we had two service calls in two days from ladies who called from a parking lot asking for assistance because the battery went out of their keyfob transmitters and they couldn't unlock the car door. I took the first call and it took me several questions before I could get my mind around exactly what the lady was telling me. Finally I understood her transmitter wouldn't unlock the car so I asked the lady what she had done with her key. She said it was right there on the keyring with the transmitter. "Then why don't you just use the key to unlock the door manually?""Do you mean I can do that?""Yes Maam, just like in the days before transmitters, just put the key in the lock and turn it.""Oh my God! You're not going to tell anybody about this are you?""Of course I am. This is too good to keep to myself."Click.Naturally, I told everyone in the shop so the next day when another lady called in with the same problem, the service manager thought I had put somebody up to it and it took a bit for him to realize that it was an honest call and the lady was just as clueless as the one the previous day.

One car in my family's set of cars triggers the alarm when you unlock it the old-fashioned way, which is needlessly annoying. I sometimes do that out of habit because my daily commuter POS is so old it doesn't have a wireless keyfob thingy - I even have to manually crank the windows up and down.

Great if it works but I have found that if you never use the locks manually they gradually seize up and won't turn.

Having said that I can still open the driver's door on my car with a key but I am instantly deafened by the alarm going off - which can only be turned off with the transmitter - so if the battery is dead ....

Having said that I can still open the driver's door on my car with a key but I am instantly deafened by the alarm going off - which can only be turned off with the transmitter - so if the battery is dead ....

Having said that I can still open the driver's door on my car with a key but I am instantly deafened by the alarm going off - which can only be turned off with the transmitter - so if the battery is dead ....